For Justin Rose, the Ryder Cup is all lights and music.
Such is the intensity of the biennial event, it is, he said, the moment when the music blares the loudest and the lights shine the brightest.
Any rookies among the eight to tee off on the first tee here in Rome on Friday in the morning foursomes have been forewarned it is a sensation unparalleled in golf.
Players have talked of limbs going numb, while European captain Luke Donald recalled totally fluffing his opening shot in the Ryder Cup. It did not prove inauspicious, Donald going on to have one of the best records of any player in the event’s annals.
The grandstand towers row upon row to make a cauldron around the first tee, with in excess of a quarter of a million fans expected through the turnstiles over the course of the next three days.
The preamble to the start has been months in the making. Players have talked of the emotions, tears flowing in the team room echoing the spirit of Seve Ballesteros and heartfelt messages from those closest to the players. Rory McIlroy was among those taken aback by his particular montage, voiced by his caddie and childhood friend Harry Diamond.
Donald is well versed in the emotions of the Ryder Cup. His approach has been to front load that at the start of the week, getting any waterworks and rabble-rousing out of the way in order to enable his players to concentrate, as best as possible, on the job at hand.
The Englishman would make for a good poker player. He has given little away about possible pairings, keeping the sort of cool exterior he did as a player who made it to No1 in the world.
He has equipped himself admirably for the cause. He inherited two vice-captains from initial captain Henrik Stenson before his dethroning due to LIV Golf in Edoardo Molinari, the stats guru whose data input Europe sees as vital to its success, and Thomas Bjorn, newly wed in London at the weekend and the last victorious captain for the continent — with a tattoo on his backside to show for it.
But added to the backroom staff by Donald has been Seve’s long-time playing partner Jose Maria Olazabal and Francisco Molinari, whose five points as one half of ‘Moliwood’ — the other half is team member Tommy Fleetwood — were so integral to Bjorn’s success in Paris.
There is a growing expectation that Europe will win. Looking ahead to Rome from Whistling Straits two years ago, such a thought seemed unthinkable after Europe suffered a 19-9 record defeat and pundits warned of a period of American dominance.
Europe does lack for Ryder Cup experience, but there is more than a frisson of excitement about its rookies, most notably Ludvig Aberg
Slowly, the hosts have wrested their way back into contention. In Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland, they have three of the four highest-ranked players in the world.
And yet it is a team with an element of unfamiliarity, notable absentees in LIV rebels Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia, the latter of whom pleaded to find a way to get involved in this year’s event, only to be given a firm ‘no’ in response.
LIV is still there on the horizon in the form of its sole representative in Brooks Koepka in the US team, and it is worth remembering that for all the Ryder Cup love-in this week, the golfing world still finds itself in a state of uneasy peace.
Europe does lack for Ryder Cup experience, but there is more than a frisson of excitement about its rookies, most notably Ludvig Aberg, the Swede who Donald has dubbed a “generational talent”.
He is a player that only turned professional in June and has never played a Major, let alone a Ryder Cup. Despite that, the 23-year-old has looked remarkably cool, calm and collected.
Ryder Cups are the sum of their parts. It is often the lesser lights among the playing stars that end up being responsible for the iconic putts: the Philip Waltons, Eamonn Darcys and Paul McGinleys of this world.
In that sense, American captain Zach Johnson knows he has the greater strength in depth from player one to 12 in the world order.
But such numbers are often totally arbitrary when it comes to Ryder Cups. History suggests this is Europe’s to lose, their last home defeat as long ago as The Belfry in 1993, when just five of their current line-up were even alive.
At 43, Rose is comfortably the oldest member of the European team and has described himself as an open door to any rookies seeking advice this week. For him, the Ryder Cup lights and music never dim.
